By Adam Hensley
Three games ago, the Hawkeyes had fallen victim to a three-game losing streak. Peter Jok, the team’s leading scorer — and one of the best in the country, for that matter — sat out two games to rest his injured back.
Thanks to balanced scoring, Iowa (14-10, 6-5 Big Ten) has won three-straight games and now sits at sixth in the conference.
“When [Jok’s] out there and teams pay the attention to him, it opens things up for Jordan [Bohannon], for Brady [Ellingson], for Tyler
Cook, and everybody else on our team,” head coach Fran McCaffery said.
A balanced scoring effort kept Nebraska guessing on defense for most of the game, especially in the second half, in which Husker coach Tim Miles said Iowa “finished [them] off.”
Eleven Hawkeyes played against Nebraska, and 10 scored.
It hasn’t always been this way, but balanced scoring is the main reason Iowa has won three straight and in a position to move up in the Big Ten standings.
“[There’s] a sense of togetherness,” Ellingson said.
Early on this season, Jok commanded the offense and questions arose about who would step up to assist the senior in the scoring column.
It’s been a team effort; no one player has carried the team during Jok’s absence and in his return from injury on Sunday.
Cook scored 13 points. He, along with Ahmad Wagner, Dom Uhl, and Cordell Pemsl, kept the Nebraska bigs in foul trouble early and often with his post presence.
“I think we just found what works best for us,” Cook said.
Those four combined to score 32 points.
Jok had a poor shooting outing in his return, but he didn’t shoot excessively. His damage came at the line, where he went 8-of-8.
Meanwhile, Bohannon and Ellingson let it fly from deep.
Bohannon drained his 54th 3-pointer of the season, setting an Iowa record for the most made shots from downtown by a freshman.
He entered the game as one of two freshmen to make more than 50 3-pointers and dish out more than 100 assists on the season (UCLA’s Lonzo Ball is the other, and he’ll likely be a lottery pick in the upcoming NBA draft).
Ellingson, coming off the bench, scored 11, but his timely buckets ignited a frenzy in the Carver crowd.
“We’re not necessarily keying into Pete all the time,” Nicholas Baer said. “We’re scoring from a variety of people. I have to credit Ellingson. He’s really elevated his game.”
Ellingson isn’t a guy who’s looking for a shot every single time he touches the ball; he’ll facilitate and set screens.
“I know guys are going to be flying at me, so I can make more plays off the dribble or create shots for others,” he said.
He also hammered the final nail in Nebraska’s coffin, knocking down his third triple of the game with fewer two minutes remaining.
Hawkeye fans can’t point to who will lead the team in scoring each night, but that’s a good thing.
Because over these last three games, opposing defenses haven’t figured it out, either.